State of New York
Department of State
Committee on Open Government

The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to
issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is
based solely upon the information presented in your correspondence.

Dear Ms. Loriz:

I have received your letter of November 25. Having requested
the "home phone numbers for all Liberty School Board members",
Mr.
Pagnucco, the District's records access officer, wrote "approved"
on your application with the following notation: "Please see Sull.
Co. Telephone Directory." Nevertheless, you wrote that "Mr.
Pagnucco was well aware that [you] requested these numbers because
two of Liberty's board members have unlisted phone numbers and
cannot be obtained by accessing the Sullivan County telephone
directory."

It is your belief that board members "should be accessible to
the public, and receiving phone calls was part of their job."
Consequently, you asked whether a school district has "the right
to
withhold unlisted phone numbers for board members." In this
regard, I offer the following comments.

First, as a general matter, the Freedom of Information Law is
based upon a presumption of access. Stated differently, all
records of an agency are available, except to the extent that
records or portions thereof fall within one or more grounds for
denial appearing in §87(2)(a) through (i) of the Law.

Second, in my view, only one of the grounds for denial is
pertinent to the matter. Specifically, §87(2)(b) states that an
agency may withhold records to the extent that disclosure would
constitute "an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

Based on the judicial interpretation of the Freedom of
Information Law, it is clear that public officers and employees
enjoy a lesser degree of privacy than others, for it has been found
in various contexts that those individuals are required to be more
accountable than others. The courts have found that, as a general
rule, records that are relevant to the performance of the official
duties of a public officer or employee are available, for
disclosure in such instances would result in a permissible rather
than an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy [see e.g., Farrell
v. Village Board of Trustees, 372 NYS 2d 905 (1975); Gannett Co. v.
County of Monroe, 59 AD 2d 309 (1977), aff'd 45 NY 2d 954 (1978);
Sinicropi v. County of Nassau, 76 AD 2d 838 (1980); Geneva Printing
Co. and Donald C. Hadley v. Village of Lyons, Sup. Ct., Wayne Cty.,
March 25, 1981; Montes v. State, 406 NYS 2d 664 (Court of Claims,
1978); Powhida v. City of Albany, 147 AD 2d 236 (1989); Scaccia v.
NYS Division of State Police, 530 NYS 2d 309, 138 AD 2d 50 (1988);
Steinmetz v. Board of Education, East Moriches, Sup. Ct., Suffolk
Cty., NYLJ, Oct. 30, 1980); Capital Newspapers v. Burns, 67 NY 2d
562 (1986)]. Conversely, to the extent that items relating to
public officers or employees are irrelevant to the performance of
their official duties, it has been found that disclosure would
indeed constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy [see
e.g., Matter of Wool, Sup. Ct., Nassau Cty., NYLJ, Nov. 22, 1977,
dealing with membership in a union; Minerva v. Village of Valley
Stream, Sup. Ct., Nassau Cty., May 20, 1981, involving the back of
a check payable to a municipal attorney that could indicate how
that person spends his/her money; Selig v. Sielaff, 200 AD 2d 298
(1994), concerning disclosure of social security numbers].

From my perspective, the home telephone number of a public
officer or employee is largely irrelevant to the performance of
one's official duties. When a person or firm seeks to contact
members of boards of education or perhaps town boards or city
councils, I believe that they typically address their
correspondence to the appropriate government office. Similarly, I
believe that those persons are contacted by phone either at or
through their government offices. While contacting a school board
member through district offices may not be the most direct method
of reaching that person, a message or notification can be given
easily to the member. Moreover, in the situation in which a person
chooses to have an unlisted phone number, he or she is likely
suggesting, in essence, that disclosure of the number would, in his
or her view, be unnecessarily intrusive or result in an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy.

I hope that the foregoing serves to enhance your understanding
of the Freedom of Information Law.